You can always check out the Center's trend collection to see how this scanning comes together to identify trends relevant to our futures. We've just added a new entry on Creative Placemaking. The Center's trend cards are also available to help you talk with colleagues and members of the community, map how trends fit together or how they fit into your community, or spark innovation activities.

And as you scan through these articles, consider dropping me a line to let me know what you're reading this week to help prepare for the future.

Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, and Learning Machines

Fast Company "How John Deere’s new AI lab is designing farm equipment for a more sustainable future"
John Deere Labs’ acquisition of Blue River Technology, a startup with computer vision and machine learning technology that can identify weeds and make it possible to spray herbicides only where they’re needed, represents one step in John Deere’s embrace of “precision agriculture,” the use of technologies like artificial intelligence and self-driving cars to target crops and soil for optimum productivity and health.

The New York Times "The suburb of the future, almost here"
As millennials continue to move to the suburbs, drawn by housing affordability, they may push a new design driven by disdain for energy wastefulness, visual monotony, and social conformity and resulting in smaller house and lot sizes, improved plant-to-pavement ratios, and more open community spaces and neighborhood amenities.

Drones

The Verge “Drones carrying blood could be the future of rural medicine”
A drone flew chilled human blood on a three-hour flight across 160 miles of Arizona desert, breaking records for the transport of biological samples on a remotely operated vehicle and pointing to a future where drones could be used to drop off medical supplies or pick up samples for testing.

Economics

BuzzFeed "There's blood in the water in Silicon Valley"
As major technology companies confront some of the biggest and most pressing issues facing the United States – automation and inequality, trust in public life, privacy and security – they are increasingly portrayed as sinister centers of unaccountable power. See also Bloomberg.

The Washington Post "How Silicon Valley is erasing your individuality"
Technology innovators are quickly pursuing full integration in our daily lives – serving as personal assistants, recommending services and products based on the data we supply, collecting and storing private information and files, and providing on-demand information and entertainment – all the while shaping society into their ideal vision of technology and humanity.

Education

Quartz “The college lecture is dying. Good riddance.”
While the college lecture is considered a picture-perfect paragon of learning for many, colleges and universities are moving ahead with interactive online courses that have students watch short videos and then immediately answer questions to test their attentiveness and enhance retention – the online segments, quizzes, problem sets, virtual study groups, and forums might actually provide more interaction than an ordinary in-person course.

The Environment

Politico "The great nutrient collapse"
Agricultural research has pointed to a decline in nutrients in many foods over the past 50 to 70 years, but many researchers are beginning to shift away from the idea that this is the result of crop selection to instead consider that changes in the atmosphere itself may be changing the food we eat.

The Internet

Slate "Apple is beckoning us into an internet of one"
With wireless headphones, cellular-connected iWatches, and wireless charging iPhones, which all network together, Apple has promoted a model of wearables that create completely cloud-based personal computing, where no matter what device you’re using you can always pick something up right where you left off.

Privacy

Engadget “Apple’s FaceID replaces TouchID on the iPhone X”
Apple’s FaceID facial recognition feature will make its debut on the iPhone X, powered by what the company calls a True Depth camera system made of a series of sensors that detect a user’s face, even in the dark, and unlocks the iPhone by simply looking at it – the system can't be spoofed by photos and all data processing is done on the device itself, leaving everything encrypted and none of the info sent to the cloud. See also The Verge.

The Economist "What machines can tell from your face"
Face recognition software could be seen as just another tech evolution, but because faces are public and unique, the ability to record, store, and analyze images of faces cheaply, quickly, and on a large scale could bring about fundamental changes to notions of privacy, fairness, and trust.

Wired "Apple’s FaceID could be a powerful tool for mass spying"
Apple’s new FaceID could raise fears over government surveillance and mass scans to identify individuals based on face profiles – one in two American adults are already enrolled in a law enforcement facial recognition network and at least one in four police departments have the capacity to run face recognition searches – as Apple’s new system will create a unified single facial recognition system built into the world's most popular devices. See also The Atlantic.

Restaurants, Retail, and Spaces

The Verge "Apple calling its stores ‘town squares’ is a pretentious farce"
Apple’s Senior Vice President of Retail Angela Ahrendts announced that the company would be calling its stores “town squares,” positioning them as “gathering places” that will transform from commercial spaces to locations where the company will develop “communities” and host concerts, lead workshops, offer up meeting rooms, and teach everything from coding to photography to music-making. See also The Atlantic, CNET, and Mashable.

Consumerist "Need an aspirin or some deodorant? CVS vending machines offer on-the-go options"
CVS will introduce vending machines at “select landmark locations” in the Northeast, including airports, public transit stations, and college campuses – the machines will be customized to suit the location they’re in and stocked with things like over-the-counter medications, beauty and personal care products, eye care and oral health care products, first aid items, batteries, phone chargers, earbuds, and healthy snacks and beverages.

Engadget "Apple's new iPhones are designed for augmented reality"
At its iPhone event this week, Apple said that all of the new iPhones were designed to be AR-ready, with phone cameras calibrated for AR, ready to handle low-light and 60 fps video, and a new gyroscope and accelerometer to ensure more accurate motion tracking.